1. Field
An ink ribbon cassette is provided.
2. Related Art
A conventional ink ribbon cassette 34 will be described with reference to a thermal transfer printer disclosed in JP-A-2002-144616. As shown in FIG. 4, the ink ribbon cassette 34 includes a first ribbon-receiving part 34a for receiving a feeding reel 32 on which an unused ink ribbon 31 is wound, and a second ribbon-receiving part 34b for receiving a take-up reel 33 on which a used ink ribbon 31 is wound.
The first and the second ribbon-receiving parts 14a and 14b are connected to each other by means of connecting walls 34c that face each other. In addition, an outlet 34d, through which the ink ribbon 31 wound on the feeding reel 32 can be withdrawn, is provided on the lower side of the first ribbon-receiving part 34a. 
A head insertion portion 35, in which a thermal head (not shown) of a printer body is positioned and can move up and down, is provided between the connecting walls 34c that face each other, and between the first ribbon-receiving part 34a and the second ribbon-receiving part 34b in the ribbon cassette 34.
An escape groove 36, in which a paper feeding mechanism (not shown) can be positioned, is formed between the head insertion portion 35 and the second ribbon-receiving part 34b so as to have a predetermined depth.
A winding opening 34e is provided on the upper side of the escape groove 36 in FIG. 4, and a guide roller 34f formed of a metal rod is rotatably supported in the vicinity of a wall 37 (to be described below) of the winding opening 34e. 
The ribbon cassette 34 is provided with a wall 37 between the head insertion portion 35 and the escape groove 36 and the winding opening 34e, through which the ink ribbon 31 drawn through the outlet 34d can be drawn, is provided on the lower side (upper side in FIG. 3) of the escape groove 36.
As shown in FIG. 3, in the escape groove 36, a ribbon-sliding portion 37a is formed at the lower end of the wall 37, and the ink ribbon 31 is drawn through the outlet 34d and exposed at the ribbon-sliding portion 37a. The ink ribbon 31 slides on the ribbon-sliding portion 37a of the wall 37, and is wound on the take-up reel 33.
When the ink ribbon cassette is inserted in a cassette-mounting portion formed in the printer body (not shown) in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the drawing, it is possible to mount the conventional ribbon cassette 34 in the printer body.
When the conventional ribbon cassette 34 is inserted and mounted in the cassette-mounting portion of the printer body, if the ink ribbon 31 exposed at the ribbon-sliding portion 37a of the wall 37 is loose, the ink ribbon is caught by the printer body. For this reason, there has been an undesirable possibility that the ink ribbon cassette 34 cannot be normally mounted.